Your headache is real, but it wasn’t caused by the Chinook…

Chinook headaches seem to be a fact of life in Calgary. While the warm change to the weather is always welcome after an arctic blast of winter, I think the phenomenon of Chinook headaches is actually a form of neuroplastic pain. Keep reading to find out why.

Air pressure as a cause of headache…

While there are studies that link the incidence of headaches and migraine headaches to changes in barometric pressure (link), studies only report a correlation between falling barometric pressure and headaches. They don’t control for all of the other causes of headaches. Additionally, one study which looked at Chinook related migraines found that some sufferers had increased migraine onset in pre-Chinook conditions, others had issues on Chinook days and another subset only suffered when high winds accompanied Chinooks (link).

Chinooks and neuropathic pain…

The evidence on whether barometric pressure causes neuropathic pain is mixed - some studies report relief with chinooks, and other studies report worsening of pain with lowering barometric pressure. Some people report that their pain worsens with higher barometric pressure. There may be a link between barometric pressure and pain, but it certainly hasn’t been settled as yet.

Putting air pressure in context…

So while it might seem like a Chinook causes a massive change in air pressure over a quick period of time, the relative change is actually pretty small. I looked back at the maximum and minimum air pressure for Calgary. Since Jan 1, 1953 the greatest change in any 24 hour period has been 4.23 kPa. The range between the highest and lowest ever recorded is 7.3 kPa. Now, that sounds like a lot, but here’s the thing, when I looked at the weather today - the pressure in Calgary was 89.11 kPa and the pressure in Banff is 85.87 kPa. A difference of 3.24 kPA, that’s because Banff is at a higher elevation.

Elevation matters way more…

Travelling from Calgary to Lake Louise is a 555 m elevation change which corresponds to a change in air pressure of about 5kPa in two hours - meaning that to drive from Calgary to Lake Louise causes a greater pressure change in less time than the weather has even been responsible for. It gets even worse when you consider flying on an airplane - most airplane cabins are pressurized to about 8000 ft (or 2400 m). This is an air pressure of 75 kPa. So that means that within about 15 minutes of take off from Calgary, the air pressure changes from 89 to about 75 kPa - more than 3 times the maximum 24 hour change, and more than twice the total range ever recorded in Calgary.

If you don’t get debilitating headaches from travelling to Lake Louise or on an airplane, I would like to suggest an alternative explanation…

Neuroplastic pain.

I believe that most Chinook headaches develop as a response to having had a pressure headache at some point (maybe a sinus cold?) coupled with expectation and conditioned responses. We know that neuroplastic pain can be caused simply by the fear of feeling it, and there is always great build up before a Chinook - you start hearing about the impending Chinook three days before it arrives. It is urban lore in Calgary that Chinooks cause headaches, and any number of people report them whenever the Chinook rolls in.

To be clear - you have a real headache, it just wasn’t caused by barometric pressure - it was caused by your brain interpreting normal feedback from your body as pain. Some Chinook headache sufferers say that as soon as they hear the word Chinook they start to feel a headache.

Pain Reprocessing Therapy can help…

You don’t have to have a headache every time the weather warms up. Pain reprocessing therapy is designed to treat exactly this kind of pain. Make an appointment today and we can begin treating your Chinook headaches. I can offer pain reprocessing therapy appointments with a minimal intake, and you can begin to see results quickly.